NO ONE could be under any illusion after listening to the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman that they knew, instinctively, a week ago that their daughters had been abducted.

"We knew they'd been taken," said Kevin Wells. Yet bizarrely police were prepared to listen to the crazed words of one witness who said she'd seen the ten-year-olds "larking about" at 6.45 the following morning.

It didn't make sense to anyone, let alone the families who must now feel numb with despair and totally bewildered by the actions of a police force who resemble the Keystone cops as every dreadful day has passed.

Only fictional TV detectives like Morse act on hunches and guesswork. In in real life it's hard facts that matter.

Around the time a doolally housewife was broadcasting to the nation that, yes, she'd definitely seen Holly and Jessica, a taxi-driver was attempting in vain to tell police what he considered a vital piece of information.

It hardly takes a degree in criminology to figure out that a cabbie, travelling at precisely the same time the girls went missing and saying he'd spotted children being driven away, would be in a position to offer some substantive clue to the investigation.

It's telling, I think, that when taxi driver Ian Webster's story finally emerged, the people making house-to-house enquiries on the estate where the green car was last spotted were journalists, not coppers.

The Cambridgeshire Constabulary are in danger of making Inspector Clouseau look sharp.